CIRJE-F-760 "Exaggerated Death of Distance: Revisiting Distance Effects on Regional Price Dispersions"
Author Name Kano, Kazuko, Takashi Kano and Kazutaka Takechi
Date September 2010
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Remarks @Revised in May 2012; subsequently published in Journal of International Economics, 2013, 90, 403-413.
Abstract

This paper empirically establishes the significant roles of transport costs in price dispersions across regions. We identify and estimate the iceberg-type distance-elastic transport costs as a parameter of a structural model of cross-regional price differentials featuring product delivery decisions. Utilizing a data set of wholesale prices and product delivery patterns of agricultural products in Japan, our structural estimation approach finds large distance elasticities of the transport costs. The result confirms that geographical barriers are an economically significant contributor to the failures of the law of one price.